


Family Legacies

by Yevynaea



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cute, Family, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Growing Up, Parenthood, Superheroes, Superpowers, Supervillains, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 03:02:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: Isidore Irving-Randall has superpowers. Her family has varying opinions on this.





	1. Five Years

**Author's Note:**

> Also on tumblr @redashtree or @mickeyrowan (tagged 'my writing')

The first time Isidore Irving-Randall discovers her primary superpower, she’s five and she’s just– mostly by accident– set another child’s stuffed turtle on fire. Her teacher quickly puts the flames out, to the sound of the startled screaming and crying of multiple kindergarteners, and Izzy’s panicked insistence of “but I didn’t _mean_ to!” The teacher, sighing a sigh that another adult would recognize as conveying ‘ _I don’t get paid enough for this_ ,’ puts the fire extinguisher down and scoops Izzy up. **  
**

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she tells the tiny super in her arms. “Let’s just call your parents to pick you up, okay?”

* * *

When Ilene Irving gets a call from her ex-husband, she’s still on shift at the fire station, but she knows he wouldn’t call during his day with Isidore if it weren’t about something important.

“Hello?” She answers her cell.

“ _I just picked up Izzy from school,_ ” Riley tells her. Ilene glances at the clock on the wall; there’s still almost two hours left in Izzy’s school day.

“Why?”

“ _Got a call from the principal_ ,” Riley says through a sigh. Ilene can imagine him rubbing his forehead, the way he tends to do. “ _Apparently, Izzy set a classmate’s toy on fire. With her_ powers.”

“Oh, _no_ ,” Ilene covers her eyes with one hand, grimacing. She’d hoped… they’d _both_ hoped, that since they hadn’t inherited any powers from their parents, Isidore might not either. “I guess my dad was right about it skipping a generation.”

“ _I guess so_ ,” Riley replies.

“Take her to your parents’ house for now,” Ilene suggests. “I’ll see if my dad has any tips after I pick her up tonight.”

* * *

Riley Randall likes to think of his life as being pretty ordinary. He’s not a super. He’s on decent terms with his ex-wife. He gets every third day with his daughter. He has a job at the public library.

There’s just also the fact that he’s the son of two superheroes, and he married the daughter of a supervillain. That had gone over _real_ well.

“So…” he starts, looking in the rearview mirror to where Izzy is strapped into her car seat, staring sullenly out the car window, her little legs kicking back and forth. “Mind telling me what happened, kiddo?”

“It was an accident,” Izzy mumbles.

“I know,” Riley assures her. “Were you angry?”

“Ellie wasn’t sharing,” Izzy crosses her arms, giving a _huff_ , and tiny red sparks leave her mouth. She blinks, then huffs to see the sparks again, like how most people breathe out in the winter just to see their breath cloud. _Oh man_ , Riley thinks.

“But you didn’t mean to set her toy on fire,” Riley repeats, and Izzy nods. “Okay. We’re gonna go to Nan and Pop’s house and see if they can give you any tips for controlling your power, okay?”

“M’kay,” Izzy says. “Can I have ice cream?”

“Sure, kiddo.”

* * *

“There’s my tiny superhero!” Nan scoops Izzy up into her arms with ease, letting her sit on one shoulder, and Izzy laughs, delighted, as always, by her grandmother’s feats of strength. “Your pop’s making ice cream, do you know anyone who might want some?”

“Me!” Izzy exclaims.

“You?” Nan asks, faking surprise. “You like ice cream?”

“ _Yes_.”

Nan laughs and carries Izzy to the kitchen, leaving Izzy’s dad to close the front door behind himself.

“Hey there, snowflake,” Pop greets her with a smile.

“Hi,” Izzy returns cheerfully as Nan sets her down in a chair. Pop is mixing a large bowl of homemade peppermint ice cream, and as Izzy watches, frost spreads from where his hand touches the bowl, and the ice cream begins to harden. Pulling the mixing spoon out before it can freeze into the bowl, Pop grabs a scoop instead. Nan hands him a smaller, more Izzy-sized bowl, and he puts two scoops in it.

He ruffles Izzy’s hair a bit as he sets her bowl and a spoon in front of her, and Izzy fakes a scowl, ducking away from his hand.

“Too cold!” She protests, breaking into giggles when Pop gasps in mock offense and withdraws his hand.

“You guys sure seem excited to see us,” Dad says from the doorway, raising an eyebrow but accepting the bowl of ice cream Pop hands him.

“Oh hush, let us spoil our only granddaughter,” Nan says, and Izzy nods in enthusiastic agreement.

* * *

Ilene knocks on the Randalls’ front door at about half past nine, after getting off shift, then sticks her hand back in her jeans pocket, rocking nervously on her heels. Ruth answers the door, an imposing figure even in her advanced age, and gives Ilene a warm smile.

“Ilene, dear, come in,” Ruth steps aside so Ilene can enter the house. Ilene offers a smile in return as she steps past the older woman.

“Hi, Ruth,” she says. “Where’s Izzy?”

“In the backyard, with the boys,” Ruth closes the door, gently, which for a woman with super strength takes a considerable amount of effort. “You can head back there, you remember the way.”

Ilene nods, heading through the house. She steps into the yard just in time to see Izzy hurl a fireball at a target, hitting it solidly, if not quite at center. The target starts to burn, but Roger’s already heading over, ice shooting out of his hand to stop the growing flame.

Ilene sits down on the porch, next to Riley.

“Oh, man,” she mutters, mentally preparing herself for the rest of her life with a superpowered daughter.

“Yep,” Riley agrees.

* * *

Isaac Irving is thoroughly delighted to get the call from his daughter the next morning, even if it does interrupt his breakfast.

“Firestarting powers, and they think she’ll be a hero?” He asks, giving a derisive “ _Ha_!”

“ _Dad_ ,” Ilene says, sounding exasperated. “ _Please don’t try to turn my five year old daughter into a supervillain_.”

“I don’t have to,” Isaac says smugly, as he spreads apricot jam on his toast. “It’s in her blood.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Ilene repeats, with a little more feeling.

“Fine, fine,” Isaac takes a bite of toast. “She develop her secondary power yet?”

“ _I’m not sure,_ ” Ilene admits.

“Those are harder to figure out,” Isaac shrugs, even though his daughter can’t see him. “Less obvious.”

“ _So I hear_ ,” Ilene says flatly. “ _You’ve got an eidetic memory as yours, right_?”

“Yup. Your mother had night vision as hers. Primary power was shadow manipulation, too.” Isaac sighs. “She could’ve been a great villain.”

“ _But she wasn’t_ ,” Ilene says emphatically.

“Stayed annoyingly neutral ‘til the day she died,” Isaac agrees, grinning at the memory of his wife’s stubbornness.

* * *

“Hello, firebug,” Isaac moves his metal cane out of the way when Izzy goes to hug him, patting her on the back while she wraps her little arms around his legs.

“Hi Mo-dad,” Izzy replies cheerfully. She goes straight from the hug to squirming past him through the doorway, making a beeline for the study and the extensive train set he’s got set up there.

“Daughter,” Isaac nods formally to Ilene, who rolls her eyes and steps in for a hug.

“Father,” she replies. Her dad chuckles.

“Mo-dad, make the trains go, make the trains go!” Isidore’s voice comes from the study, and Ilene smiles, pulls back from the hug to let her father oblige.

They both head into the study, and Isaac snaps his fingers, sparks of electricity dancing off of his hands into the controls of the train set, and the whirring of the trains as they come to life is immediately drowned out by Izzy’s delighted “go, go, go!”

* * *

Ilene bounces her leg, soda bottle held between both hands, as her father sits across the living room from her with his own root beer, _infuriatingly_ smug.

“I’m just worried about her,” Ilene admits. “ _You_ never got caught, but you were careful.”

“And I’ll teach her to be, too,” Isaac says, nodding sagely. “…Whether she chooses to be a villain or not.”

Ilene huffs a laugh, catching her father’s pained grimace at the idea that Izzy might become a hero.  



	2. Eight & Nine

Izzy is eight, almost nine, and she’s at Nan and Pop’s house for the night while her mom’s on shift and her dad’s at some kind of work conference thing, out of town. She knows Pop has some low-level empathy, and Nan has omnilingualism, which Izzy is still working on pronouncing, and Mo-dad has a perfect memory. She’s been waiting for _years_ to find her second power, and so far nothing obvious has happened. **  
**

“Maybe you can jump high,” Pop offers, chopping vegetables for dinner while Izzy fiddles with the stove, trying to get the pasta water to boil faster.

“Maybe,” she says, but truth be told she’s tried that already. Along with quite a few other things.

“Probability influence?” Pop asks.

“Nope.” For that one she’d flipped a coin twenty times, then repeated this on ten different days after Mom told her that would make the experiment more reliable.

“I’m sure you’ll find it eventually, snowflake,” Pop says. Izzy frowns. She knows her second power will show up eventually, but waiting for eventually is so _boring_.

* * *

The stone floor is cold beneath her bare feet, and the air of the disused building smells distinctly old and musty, but Izzy doesn’t care. Mo-dad still has a secret lair, and it has a _pool_ , and this is the _coolest thing ever_. Izzy’s bouncing excitedly on her toes as Mo-dad flips on all the lights and Mom tests the chemical levels of the water. Her swimsuit has cartoon depictions of Hemlock and Tempest, the current most popular hero duo in the city. Mo-dad doesn’t mind them because he says they’re “actually anti-heroes”.

“I used to keep electric eels in there, to dangle sidekicks over,” Mo-dad says casually, squinting in irritation at a burned out lightbulb. “Your gran made me turn it into a swimming pool when your mom was young.”

“What happened to the eels?” Izzy asks.

“Called some kind of marine wildlife preservation place to relocate them,” Mo-dad waves a hand dismissively. “They lived long, healthy lives, I was assured.”

* * *

Ilene sits with her feet in the pool, half watching Izzy swim and splash and dive into the deep water, and half listening to the news alert her dad has playing on his phone about a villain’s bank robbery going on downtown. She notices when Izzy’s splashing goes quiet, and her full attention snaps to her daughter, but Izzy’s still moving under the water, frog-swimming the length of the pool. Ilene relaxes, and, keeping her eyes on Isidore, lets her focus drift partially back to the news alert.

After Izzy does a full lap and turns around, keeps swimming without coming up for air, Ilene pauses. Then Izzy does another lap, and another.

“Um, Dad…” Ilene nods toward Izzy, under the water, and Isaac looks, curious. They watch Isidore swim over three dozen laps before kicking off against the bottom of the pool, breaching the surface with a loud gasp.

“Mom! Mo-dad!” Izzy’s grin is wide and ecstatic as she paddles over. “I can hold my breath!”

“Impressive, firebug,” Isaac says proudly, and Izzy beams at him. Ilene almost bursts out laughing at the conflict between her daughter’s two powers, but she refrains. Barely.

* * *

“Twenty-eight minutes, nineteen seconds!” Benny Bandini announces, pausing his stopwatch as Izzy clambers out of the pool. Izzy puts her hands up, jumping in victory and almost splashing him.

“New record!” She exclaims, sending him a grin that Benny easily returns.

Benny’s moms know that his neighbor and classmate is a super, like him. They know he’s playing at Izzy’s grandpa’s pool with her today, as he has been most weekends the last couple months. He just, maybe, kinda, a little bit, failed to mention that Izzy’s grandpa used to be the super villain Electrostorm.

“You kids still alive in there?” The old man himself calls from the next room. “Lunch is here, if you are.”

“Coming, grandpa!” Izzy calls back, her skin beginning to glow, like an ember, as she evaporates the water off of herself. She puts her clothes on over her swimsuit, and Benny pulls a shirt on with his swim trunks. They both hurry out to the main room, which is large, and full of scorch marks and gouges and bits of old destroyed weapons, and, more recently, a dining table, some chairs, a small cabinet of dishes, and a couch and coffee table.

“Duk mandu guk, beef bulgogi, chicken bulgogi, and those two little boxes are the rice,” Mr. Irving points out the different food, already eating, and Izzy grabs bowls for herself and Benny. “You kids have fun swimming?”

“Yep,” Izzy says, sitting down and beginning to serve herself.

“Yes, thanks Mr. Irving,” Benny agrees, following Izzy’s lead.

“Isaac’s fine,” the old man grumbles, not for the first time, but Benny’s moms raised him to be polite to people older than him, as long as they’re polite back, so he’s having trouble calling Izzy’s grandpa by first name.

“Okay, Isaac,” Benny says anyway, not for the first time, and Mr. Irving _hmms_ , but doesn’t say anything else. Izzy giggles, then eats a dumpling whole while Benny looks on, impressed. A non-villain grandparent might comment on this impoliteness– Benny knows his grandparents would– but Mr. Irving just snorts in amusement.

* * *

Ilene can’t help but feel secretly glad that most of her daughter’s friends aren’t supers. She doesn’t think she’d be able to handle it if they were; birthday parties are already chaotic enough as it is.

Isaac and the Randalls wouldn’t dare cause a scene at their only granddaughter’s ninth birthday party, but Ilene sees them glaring suspiciously at each other from across the living room throughout the day. Riley’s agreed to stay in the living room unless he’s needed elsewhere, just to make sure there aren’t any _incidents_.

Ilene’s time is split between the kitchen, making sure she’s got enough different desserts to accommodate all the allergies she knows about, and the backyard, where her next door neighbors, the Bandinis, are handling the grill, while the kids play a complex imaginary heroes and villains game. Ilene, early on in the game, stressed the importance of not actually using their powers on each other, especially given that not all the kids _had_ powers, and in the general chaos of having eight kids in a fairly confined space, she’s not exactly sure if her advice is being followed.

* * *

“Dad, I told you no weapons,” Ilene gives her father a _look_ , shoving the last of the discarded wrapping paper into a trash bag with a little more force than might be strictly necessary.

“It doesn’t _work_ ,” Isaac dismisses, waving a hand at her. “Practically a toy.”

“But it’s not,” Ilene says pointedly. “You gave my nine year old a _real_ death ray.”

“Without a power source,” Isaac defends. “The Randalls gave her a cape! Covered in glitter! _Hmph_. How impractical can you get? No granddaughter of mine will enact evil schemes wearing a glittery cape.”

Ilene drops the trash bag and throws her hands up in exasperated defeat.

* * *

“ _Psst_ ,” Izzy whispers, jabbing Benny in the back with a pencil, and Benny startles, flickering out of sight for half a second before spinning in his seat to face her.

“What?” He whispers back.

“What do you think about my costume?” Izzy asks, sliding him her sketchbook.

“What are the orange things on your head?”

“Those are part of the mask,” Izzy explains.

“Benny, Isidore, do you two have something to share with the class?” Their teacher asks from the front of the room. Izzy snatches her sketchbook back and Benny whirls back around to face front, folding his hands on his desk.

“No, Miss Adder,” Izzy says. Benny shakes his head. The teacher gives them a warning look, but continues the lesson.

* * *

“How come the supers get so many prizes, and we don’t?” Frank jerks his chin at the television, where the mayor is presenting a superhero with a medal. “We’re still the first responders. We do just as much good work as them. We should get medals too.”

“We do just as much good work,” Ilene agrees, “but they do it with _flair_.”

Frank snorts, waving her off. Ilene grins as she finishes putting her things up, grabbing her purse and keys. “See you Friday.”

“See ya,” he returns his attention to the television as she leaves.

* * *

“June called Helena a freak today,” Izzy says over dinner. Ilene hesitates in replying; she would’ve gotten a call from Riley or the school if there’d been any kind of incident.

“And?” She settles for prompting.

“I kinda wanted to set her hair on fire, but Benny told me not to,” Izzy replies. _Thank god for that boy’s level-headedness_ , Ilene thinks.

“Why did she call her a freak?” Ilene asks softly. Isidore shrugs halfheartedly, taking a large bite of her burrito to avoid having to answer. “Because of her powers?”

“No,” Izzy says, mouth still full. Ilene decides to give her a pass on that, for now. “Because it’s not like she’s the only super in class. There’s me, and Benny, and Drequan, and Maria. And Cameron, but he never uses his powers so he _barely_ counts. I think it was ‘cause Helena’s a girl even though she said the doctors said she wasn’t when she was a baby.”

“…Yeah. Maybe June was just being mean,” Ilene says with a sigh. “Sometimes people are just mean, sweetheart. Kids learn things from their parents, not always good things.”

“Yeah,” Izzy replies, taking another bite. “I invited Helena to swim with me and Benny next Sunday, is that okay?”

“Sure,” Ilene smiles. “I’ll come with you, so your grandpa won’t be too outnumbered by you crazy kids.”

“I dunno, Mom,” Isidore grins, “Mo-dad’s pretty crazy too. He _was_ a supervillain, you know.”

Ilene laughs, and Izzy beams, pleased with her own joke.


End file.
